Zahra Hosseini wins the $5,000 CRMR Winter 2024 Support Scholarship!
Congratulations to Zahra Hosseini, who has been awarded the Winter 2024 Renewable Materials Research Centre (RMRC) Support Scholarship, worth $5,000. Zahra Hosseini is pursuing her doctoral studies in wood and bio-based materials engineering under the supervision of  Pierre Blanchet.
The scholarship aims to promote university studies and research related to the CRMR’s areas of research, by offering financial assistance to a graduate student at the end of his or her studies, with no source of funding. Zahra Hosseini’s application was selected by a committee of four CRMR researchers based on her academic performance, personal and scientific achievements, and the quality of her research project.
Congratulations to Zahra, and a sincere thank you to the committee for their support throughout the process!
Project title and summary: Positioning timber construction in the circular economy
The construction sector is responsible for using around 40% of the world’s natural resources and producing 25% of its waste. It is also responsible for around 40% of global CO2 emissions. This is because the traditional linear economy dangerously pushes us to use materials in an unsustainable way. The linear economy, which focuses solely on the extraction of resources, the manufacture of products, their use, and finally their disposal as waste, is responsible for this destructive behavior in the construction sector. It is therefore important to change this behavior and reduce the sector’s impact on the environment. By reducing the extraction of resources, we minimize their use. This in turn reduces the production of materials, and thus CO2 emissions and waste. These are the concepts addressed by the circular economy (CE).
With this in mind, the CE aims to minimize waste production as far as possible and to keep materials in a continuous cycle so that they can be reused as resources. Although research into the circular economy in construction has progressed in recent years, the effective implementation of CE strategies in this sector is still limited. A major obstacle is that the entire construction supply chain operates according to the linear economy, and switching to the circular economy would require major changes. These include the choice of basic materials, the implementation of sustainable and circular building design, the use of construction systems and technologies that promote the reuse of materials, and the management of waste after the end of a building’s life. With a lack of clear guidance on how to make this transition, industry players are hesitant to implement these changes. That’s why this study examines the circular economy, analyzes the current state of its application, and suggests actions to make the transition to circular construction more accessible. The main aim of the study is to assess the impact of the circular economy on the construction sector, from the design and choice of materials to the end-of-life of the building.
Potential applications and spin-offs:
In summary, this doctoral project aimed to promote circularity in construction in Quebec. Given that the level of circularity in this region is well below the global average, such circularity is imperative. As construction is one of the sectors with the greatest impact on the environment, changes need to be made. The results highlight that the main strategy for increasing circularity is to reduce waste production and improve the recycling and reuse of materials. This research project can provide guidance to the construction sector on how to promote the application of circular strategies among the players involved. In addition, it defines the necessary measures to be taken to implement circular strategies, to reduce the environmental impacts associated with this sector.